Dog Days

The period of dog days in Kentucky usually starts around the  1st of July and ends  mid- August.

A lot of things change during those days, when I was younger I remember Mother and Dad cautioning us about getting cuts of any kind on our feet, because it was easy for them to get infected, from the polluted and stagnated waters. 

You could easily get what they called dew poising  walking barefooted through grass in the early mornings,  especially if you had any cuts or scratches on your feet.

There were other unusual things about dog days that took place as well; keeping people on edge.

 It was said snakes go blind and will strike at anything during that time,  and if it rains the first day of the dog day period, it will rain each day afterwards.

If it didn't rain any during dog days,  wells could go dry, animals would became more lazy and cantankerous, and in many cases so would humans.

Insects were more plentiful then,  Farmers didn't preform any surgery's on animals, or cut their hay during dog days.

Needless to say with all these things going on we were cautious with what we did.

Despite of all the legends and myths of dog days, it seems they did occur each and every year about the same time, and people learned how to endure them .

Coleman Schell